I'll Have Another sold to Japanese farm for $10 million

Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another was sold for nearly $10 million to a Japanese farm to enter stud, owner J. Paul Reddam said Monday in a report on bloodhorse.com.

Reddam said that he sold the horse to the Big Red Farm in Japan because he received only two written offers from American farms - one was for $3 million and the other for $2.5 million for half the rights plus nine lifetime breeding rights, a value Reddam put at $5 million.

"I am sad that he is not going to stand in America," Reddam told bloodhorse.com. "I would have loved to have bred to him. It seems to me that if the goal in American racing is to win the Kentucky Derby, you should breed to horses that have enough stamina and are game enough to win the Derby, but I guess I'm in the minority."

In a blog he wrote for bloodhorse.com, Reddam said the rights to Bodemeister, the runnerup in all three Triple Crown races, "recently purportedly sold for about 13 million in America."

Trainer Doug O'Neill told the Albany Times-Union he expected more interest in America.

"That surprised me, big time," he said. "We all dreamed of breeding him here. You know, the best offer Paul (owner Reddam) had was a third of what Japan came up with."

I'll Have Another is now awaiting the completion of procedural bloodwork that will allow him to be exported.

I'll Have Another never got the chance to run for the Triple Crown because he was scratched from the Belmont Stakes because of an injury.

Reddam said Monday that I'll Have Another was diagnosed with a "tendon tear" the day before the Belmont, a condition much more serious than the tendinitis some believed he suffered.